Laura J Steinberg An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching

Laura J. Steinberg An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching about Urban Infrastructure

CIE 400 and 600: Modern Urban Infrastructure: Theory and Practice Professor Steinberg, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department An interdisciplinary course addressing pressing national and international issues in planning, building, maintaining, and protecting public works infrastructure. We will discuss the economic and social impacts of infrastructure, infrastructure resilience and sustainability, financing and managing infrastructure construction, infrastructure asset management, and international infrastructure development. This course is open to all majors, but students must be seniors or graduate students. Flooding of New Orleans Green Roof in Singapore Panama Canal Golden Gate Bridge International Airport

Course Topics (optimistic) • State of US Infrastructure • Impacts of Infrastructure: • Economic development, community growth, neighborhoods and people • Managing Infrastructure: • Operations and maintenance, reliability, role of technology, smart cities • Infrastructure Resilience • Disasters, climate change • Infrastructure as networks, • Critical infrastructure and security, • Risk assessment and management, • Infrastructure and Sustainability • Infrastructure costs and financing options • life cycle costing; • Public private partnerships; • Construction and delivery mechanisms • Global infrastructure and Megacities • Ethics of Infrastructure

Goals • Provide students with an understanding of the complexities of urban infrastructure, get beyond the usual constraint-driven design paradigm • Student should think more broadly about the role of infrastructure in the community – “invisible web” • Students should be able to recognize that behind each major piece of infrastructure is a complex story defined by the interplay of political, economic, community, and societal forces. • Students should realize that behind these forces are people, who had a variety of motivations for wishing to influence the project in one way or another. • Every project has a fascinating story behind it, and every project they will work on can be viewed not only through an engineering or technology lens, but a lens of people, place, and time.

History of The United States In the 20 th Century

The New Yorker, The Really Big One by Kathryn Schultz

Key Concepts • • Why was it built? Alternatives? Reason for final design? Controversy? How was it financed? Political process? Who gained, who lost? Environmental, social, etc. impacts New technologies? Part of an infrastructure system? A system of systems? History since built? How to deal with the passage of time (technology, demand, location)

Teaching methods • No powerpoint from me – whiteboard and photos of whiteboard, some videos (short videos to highlight certain areas, like examples of resilience building + Big Dig video) • Read-aheads; including journal articles, history texts, topquality magazine journalism • Seminar-style – ask questions, call on students • Presentations from students – not graded – on specific current infrastructure projects – used powerpoints only to show photos • A paper – draft, then final – with class presentation • A few homeworks – including one where they were asked to appreciate fine writing (the really big one) • When I realized there was a gap in what I considered basic knowledge, would divert from lecture topic to address this (see next slide)

Teaching methods • No powerpoint from me – whiteboard and photos of whiteboard, some videos (short videos to highlight certain areas, like examples of resilience building + Big Dig video) • Read-aheads; including journal articles, history texts, topquality magazine journalism • Seminar-style – ask questions, call on students • Presentations from students – not graded – on specific current infrastructure projects – used powerpoints only to show photos • A paper – draft, then final – with class presentation • A few homeworks – including one where they were asked to appreciate fine writing (the really big one) • When I realized there was a gap in what I considered basic knowledge, would divert from lecture topic to address this

Course Paper

Goals • Provide students with an understanding of the complexities of urban infrastructure, get beyond the usual constraint-driven design paradigm • Student should think more broadly about the role of infrastructure in the community – “invisible web” • Students should be able to recognize that behind each major piece of infrastructure is a complex story defined by the interplay of political, economic, community, and societal forces. • Students should realize that behind these forces are people, who had a variety of motivations for wishing to influence the project in one way or another. • Every project has a fascinating story behind it, and every project they will work on can be viewed not only through an engineering or technology lens, but a lens of people, place, and time.

What I will change next year • More reading • Build in the historical overview of America to set the context • More about international development • Cross-list the course for more diversity of majors Get the project going earlier in the course, so the students have more time to gather info • Your suggestions? ?

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